VOL-10 Test 1 Passage 1 — IELTS Reading

<p>The first known glass objects can be traced back to the ancient Eastern empires, in about 3500 BC, building on existing knowledge about glazes, a new material, including sand and metal oxides, was developed. This material – glass – was initially used for small pieces of jewellery and inlays in small statues. Then it was used increasingly for vessels made to hold perfumes, oils, and fragrances. Transparency was not a characteristic of these works. Of greater interest to the early glass artisans was the ability to reproduce the colour-and-structures of highly valued semi-precious stones.</p>

<p>The first known glass objects can be traced back to the ancient Eastern empires, in about 3500 BC, building on existing knowledge about glazes, a new material, including sand and metal oxides, was developed. This material – glass – was initially used for small pieces of jewellery and inlays in small statues. Then it was used increasingly for vessels made to hold perfumes, oils, and fragrances. Transparency was not a characteristic of these works. Of greater interest to the early glass artisans was the ability to reproduce the colour-and-structures of highly valued semi-precious stones.</p>

<p>By about 450 BC, artisans in the glass workshops of the Persian Empire had learned to apply other techniques to glassmaking, probably producing vessels of considerable size on a turning wheel. Cutting techniques were also used for some of their complex decorations. Meanwhile, the Greeks still concentrated their energies on ceramics, and used glass simply for coloured inlays in sculptures – especially for magnificent monumental statues in public sites.</p>

<p>However, in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, an industry of luxury glass items of various forms did emerge in former Greek areas strongly influenced by eastern cultures. This industry was in turn to have a profound effect on the glass art of the early-Roman Empire.</p>

<p>The rise of the Roman Empire (1st century BC) was accompanied by an increase in glass production in the Mediterranean region. Initially glass retained its status as a luxury material – indeed from the earliest years of its development it had been generally considered equal to precious stones and valuable metals. Coloured glass bowls, mosaic-glass plates, and glass vessels with gold décor were very popular with the wealthy. However, as the empire expanded, the steps from luxury to mass production, and from decorative objects to vessels for daily use, were gradually taken.</p>

<p>The grounding for this was the Syrian glassmakers’ discovery at the beginning of the 1st century BC that glass, when melted, can be made into shapes by blowing down a hollow metal tube. Thus it became possible for these craftsmen to produce a large variety of vessels for different uses – from simple bottles to more decorative and complex pieces. Starting with the leading Syrian glassworks, glass as a manufactured product spread across the entire area of Roman rule. With mass production, glass increasingly became a trade item – of no minor importance in convincing the so-called ‘barbarians’ from the border areas such as Germany of the superiority of Roman civilization.</p>

<p>The well-planned network of roads in the Roman Empire ensured that the new shapes of manufactured glass objects, and the newly developed techniques used to produce them, were quickly spread and adopted. Wherever suitable materials were found, the same or very similar glass forms, with hardly any variation in quality, were made. This is true of the Italian peninsula, including Rome itself, where numerous workshops producing high-quality goods existed, as well as of Spain and along the shores of the Black Sea. Because of their particularly well-suited sand and large deposits of soda ash, however, the main centres of glass production remained in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Lower Egypt.</p>